A faulty iron hormone in the skin may be the root cause of psoriasis

Scientists may have uncovered the root cause of psoriasis, a chronic and sometimes debilitating skin disease that affects 2–3% of the global population. The condition is characterized by red, scaly patches that impact the quality of a patient's life and can sometimes be life-threatening.

New research strongly suggests the hormone hepcidin may trigger the onset of the condition. This marks the first time hepcidin has been considered a potential causal factor. In mammals, hepcidin is responsible for regulating iron levels in the body.

The study is published in the journal Nature Communications.

The researchers hope their finding will lead to the development of new drugs able to block the action of the hormone.

Those most likely to benefit from such a treatment are patients with pustular psoriasis (PP)—a particularly severe and treatment-resistant form of the disease that can affect a patient's nails and joints as well as skin.

Psoriasis is a life-changing dermatological disease. Patients face a potentially disfiguring and lifelong affliction that profoundly affects their lives, causing them both physical discomfort and emotional distress. The condition can also lead to other serious health conditions.

A new treatment targeting iron hormone imbalance in the skin offers hope. This innovative approach could significantly enhance the quality of life for millions, restoring their confidence and well-being.

Iron is an essential trace metal, not just for transporting oxygen through the body's circulatory system but also for maintaining healthy skin. It's involved in many essential cellular functions, including wound healing, collagen production and immune function. However, iron overload in the skin can be harmful, amplifying the damaging effects of UV sunlight and causing hyperproliferative chronic diseases (where cells grow and multiply more than normal), including psoriasis.

Studies going back 50 years have reported high iron concentrations in the skin cells of psoriatic patients. However, the cause of this excess and its significance to the condition have remained unclear until now.

The new study is the first to name hepcidin as the likely link.

Hepcidin is responsible for controlling how much iron is absorbed from food and later released into the body. In healthy individuals, it's produced exclusively in the liver. However, the new study has found that in people with psoriasis, the hormone is also generated in the skin.

Part 1

In the new study, mice (which have many genetic and physiological similarities to humans) developed a rodent form of psoriasis after being exposed to high levels of skin-produced hepcidin.

This over-abundance of the hormone caused the animals' skin cells to retain far more iron than was required. In turn, this excess iron triggered both a hyperproliferation of skin cells and an abnormally high concentration of inflammation-inducing neutrophils (a type of immune system cell) in the topmost layer of skin.

These two outcomes—an overproduction of skin cells and an abundance of neutrophils—are main features of human psoriasis.

Psoriasis runs in families, though experts believe "environmental" factors such as weight, infections and smoking are also triggers.

Currently there is no cure for psoriasis, though treatments that include topical creams, light therapy and oral drugs can help keep symptoms under control for patients with some forms of the condition. Recent treatments have focused on targeting the immune pathways that contribute to the development of psoriasis.

Elise Abboud et al, Skin hepcidin initiates psoriasiform skin inflammation via Fe-driven hyperproliferation and neutrophil recruitment, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-50993-8

Part 2

We found a new shape, say mathematicians

A geometric building block with rounded corners.

Mathematicians have declared a new class of shape – but it’s not like your typical circle, triangle or square. So what is it? The ‘shape’ is one seen throughout nature, which the scientists have named the ‘soft cell’. 

The shape can take different forms, so long as it has rounded edges and fits together in a tessellated grid – known as ‘tiling’ in maths.

In 2D, tessellating fully rounded shapes isn't possible, unless there are ‘cusps’ – the sharp points between curves (like the top of a teardrop). An example of this in 2D is the cross section of an onion.

But the researchers behind the new study have discovered it is possible to tesselate a fully rounded shape in 3D – such as the chambers of a nautilus shell (the spiralling mollusc with orange stripes). These chambers look angular in 2D, but the researchers were amazed to see that, when modelled in 3D, there were no edges at all.

While these shapes have been known for centuries, no-one has formalised the notion of soft cells until now.

The Hungarian team behind the newer paper, published in the journal PNAS Nexus, considered what happens if you give this tile, known as an ‘einstein’, rounded corners. Using algorithms to convert geometric shapes into soft cells, they discovered that in 3D, soft cells can fill all the gaps without having any corners at all.

The team then tried to work out the maximum ‘softness’ a shape can have, and realised that the softest shapes are not compact and simple but actually flare out at the sides like wings (like the shape of a horse saddle).

In nature, the researchers think, corners are points of structural weakness. Bending around corners may also cost energy and build tension at edges, so natural shapes tend to avoid them.

 The discovery could inspire architecture: already, since finishing writing the paper, the researchers have collaborated with architects at the California College of Arts in San Francisco, USA, to design buildings comprised of soft cells.

https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/3/9/pgae311/7754698?logi...

Changes in risk factors may be contributing to growing number of babies born prematurely

Preterm births have increased by more than 10% over the past decade, with racial and socioeconomic disparities persisting over time, according to a new study analyzing more than five million births.

The study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, also found that some factors that increase the risk for preterm birth—such as diabetes, sexually transmitted infections, and mental health conditions—became much more common over the past decade, while other factors that protect against preterm birth declined.

These  findings not only show that preterm births are on the rise, but provide clues as to why this may be the case.

Babies born preterm or prematurely—before the 37th week of pregnancy—are more likely to experience a range of short and longer-term problems, including a higher risk for illness, intellectual and emotional difficulty, and death.

Certain factors are known to increase the risk of preterm birth, including mothers having high BP, diabetes, stress because of social and economical conditions, an infection,  smoking, previously having a preterm birth, having fewer than three prenatal care visits, and even housing insecurity. 

Rates of preterm birth grew across nearly all groups, but varied by racial/ethnic and socioeconomic group.  And researchers noted that the causal  rates of preexisting diabetes, sexually transmitted infections, and mental health conditions more than doubled during the decade studied.

The researchers note that their findings underscore the need to improve pregnancy care and promote treatments that address risk factors associated with preterm birth—which are often underutilized during pregnancy.

 Laura Jelliffe-Pawlowski et al, Risk and Protective Factors for Preterm Birth Among Racial, Ethnic, and Socioeconomic Groups in California, JAMA Network Open (2024). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.35887. jamanetwork.com/journals/jaman … tworkopen.2024.35887

Study finds estrogens play a hidden role in cancers, inhibiting a key immune cell

Estrogens are known to drive tumor growth in breast cancer cells that carry its receptors, but a new study by Duke Cancer Institute researchers unexpectedly finds that estrogens play a role in fueling the growth of breast cancers without the receptors, as well as numerous other cancers.

Appearing Sept. 27 in the journal Science Advances, the researchers describe how estrogens not only decrease the ability of the immune system to attack tumors, but also reduce the effectiveness of immunotherapies that are used to treat many cancers, notably triple-negative breast cancers. Triple-negative breast cancers are an aggressive form of disease that are negative for estrogen, progesterone, and the HER2 receptor proteins

Informed by retrospective analysis of patient data and experiments in mice, the researchers found that anti-estrogen drugs reversed the effects of estrogens, restoring potency to immunotherapies.

The researchers  focused on a type of white blood cell called eosinophils, which are typically activated during allergic reactions and inflammatory diseases.

Eosinophils have recently been identified as important in tumors, and a phenomenon called tumor associated tissue eosinophilia, or TATE, is associated with better outcomes among patients with multiple types of cancer, including colon, esophageal, gastric, oral, melanoma and liver cancers.

In their studies, the Duke team described how estrogens decrease the number of eosinophils and TATE in mice. The hormone contributes to increased tumor growth in estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer tumors and in melanoma tumors, which do not rely on estrogen receptors for tumor growth.

Conversely, anti-estrogen therapies inhibited estrogen receptor signaling and enhanced the efficacy of immunotherapies, slowing tumor growth.

Sandeep Artham et al, Estrogen signaling suppresses tumor associated tissue eosinophilia to promote breast tumor growth., Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adp2442. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adp2442

As LLMs grow bigger, they're more likely to give wrong answers than admit ignorance

A team of AI researchers  has found that as popular LLMs (Large Language Models) grow larger and more sophisticated, they become less likely to admit to a user that they do not know an answer.

In their study  published in the journal Nature, the group tested the latest version of three of the most popular AI chatbots regarding their responses, accuracy, and how good users are at spotting wrong answers.

As LLMs have become mainstream, users have become accustomed to using them for writing papers, poems or songs and solving math problems and other tasks, and the issue of accuracy has become a bigger issue. In this new study, the researchers wondered if the most popular LLMs are getting more accurate with each new update and what they do when they are wrong.

To test the accuracy of three of the most popular LLMs, BLOOM, LLaMA and GPT, the group prompted them with thousands of questions and compared the answers they received with the responses of earlier versions to the same questions.

They also varied the themes, including math, science, anagrams and geography, and the ability of the LLMs to generate text or perform actions such as ordering a list. For all the questions, they first assigned a degree of difficulty.

They found that with each new iteration of a chatbot, accuracy improved in general. They also found that as the questions grew more difficult, accuracy decreased, as expected. But they also found that as the LLMs grew larger and more sophisticated, they tended to be less open about their own ability to answer a question correctly.

In earlier versions, most of the LLMs would respond by telling users they could not find the answers or needed more information. In the newer versions, the LLMs were more likely to guess, leading to more answers in general, both correct and incorrect. They also found that all the LLMs occasionally produced incorrect responses even to easy questions, suggesting that they are still not reliable.

The research team then asked volunteers to rate the answers from the first part of the study as being either correct or incorrect and found that most had difficulty spotting incorrect answers.

Lexin Zhou et al, Larger and more instructable language models become less reliable, Nature (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07930-y

Fruit juice offers a fresh take on kombucha

Kombucha is a fizzy, tangy drink made by fermenting tea. But brewers are now fermenting other plant-based drinks to explore nutritional properties and flavors. Researchers in ACS Agricultural Science & Technology compared the biochemistry and flavor of kombucha with brews made from apple and passion fruit juices. They found that the apple beverage contained high levels of bioactive compounds called flavonoids and ranked highly among taste testers, signaling its promise as a kombucha alternative. 

To make kombucha, brewers ferment sweetened tea with a spongy disk of microbes known as a SCOBY, or symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast. The resulting beverage contains beneficial bacteria from the fermentation process and bioactive compounds from the tea, including flavonoids, phenolics and anthocyanins that may have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Few studies have investigated whether liquids other than tea could be brewed as kombucha-like beverages with boosted antioxidant levels or unique flavors. So, Socorro Vanesca, Frota Gaban and coworkers fermented antioxidant-rich apple and passion fruit juices with a SCOBY to find out.

After fermenting apple juice, passion fruit juice, and tea in separate jars for 10 days at room temperature, the researchers measured the levels of several bioactive compounds in each brew and found that:

• The apple beverage had the highest level of flavonoids, followed by kombucha and the passion fruit drink.
• The kombucha and apple beverages had comparable levels of phenolic compounds that were higher than those of the passion fruit beverage.
• All three brews had similar amounts of anthocyanin, a red-colored antioxidant.

Because fermented apple juice has more flavonoids and a pleasant taste compared with the other beverages, the researchers say it could be a successful alternative to kombucha made from tea.

https://www.acs.org/pressroom/presspacs/2024/september/fruit-juice-...

 Soraya Ferreira da Silva et al, Physicochemical Properties, Antioxidant Activity, and Sensory Profiles of Kombucha and Kombucha-Like Beverages Prepared Using Passion Fruit (Passiflora edulis) and Apple (Malus pumila), ACS Agricultural Science & Technology (2024). DOI: 10.1021/acsagscitech.4c00372

Multiple surgeries could contribute to cognitive decline in older people

Multiple surgeries could lead to cognitive decline, a study has found, using data from the United Kingdom's Biobank to analyze half a million patients aged 40 to 69 and followed over 20 years of brain scans, cognitive tests and medical records.

Many families have stories of how repeated surgeries and hospitalizations worsened the reaction time and memory of elderly relatives. Now, a University of Sydney led study has revealed multiple surgeries have a small effect on memory, reaction time, task-switching and problem-solving for older patients with each additional surgery.

The study also found brain MRIs of people who had surgeries also showed physical differences in areas of the brain responsible for memory.

People who had surgeries were also found to have a smaller hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for memory and learning. They also had more evidence of brain damage associated with blocked blood vessels, compared to those who did not undergo repeated surgeries.

"The results suggest that the cognitive decline per surgery may seem small, but those changes and losses in neurodegeneration really start to add up after multiple surgeries," say the researchers. They found that surgeries are safe on average but also that the burden of multiple surgeries on the brain health of older patients should not be underestimated.

This is a reminder to medical professionals to consider all treatment options and be cautious in recommending major surgery for older and more vulnerable patients. If surgery is the best or only treatment option, patients should be reassured that the cognitive harm from each surgery is small on average. Nonetheless, careful attention in perioperative care is required to prioritize brain health and recovery."

Jennifer Taylor et al, Association between surgical admissions, cognition, and neurodegeneration in older people: a population-based study from the UK Biobank, The Lancet Healthy Longevity (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.lanhl.2024.07.006

**Which men may be more likely to commit sexual assault: women take note of this**
Research by Psychologists sheds light on which men might choose to ignore a lack of consent and why. Their research explores how men make decisions in high-risk sexual situations, which could potentially offer insights into prevention.
They found that adherence to cultural myths about what constitutes rape was the strongest predictor of assaultive behaviour, even controlling for other personality factors. We may, therefore, be able to curtail some assaults by dispelling these myths through education.

However, underlying beliefs or the particulars of a situation form only part of the picture. The risk for sexual assault is even more strongly linked to who a man actually is in terms of personality—a factor that may be less amenable to change.
The researchers focused on "emerging adults," a category that ranges from the late teens to the mid-to-late 20s. Individuals in this age range are more likely to find themselves in higher-risk sexual situations, such as hookups, rather than long-term, exclusive sexual relationships. It's also a time when individuals are still developing beliefs and behaviors related to sex, making them more amenable to intervention.
Part 1

A high proportion of men report that they would commit a considerably violent rape if they could be assured that they would not get caught. This may sound surprising, but the men that are likeliest to commit rape also tend to carry traits that make their reporting less surprising, like high levels of impulsivity and adherence to hypermasculine ideologies that see nothing wrong with male sexual dominion.
According to the researchers findings, factors that predispose men to sexual assault include rigid adherence to traditional gender roles, which assume male dominance; personalities that exhibit a callous disregard for others; sexism, whether overtly hostile or benevolent; and low empathy. Other factors include a belief in rape myths and ideologies that promote social dominance, such as right-wing authoritarianism.
There is also a small correlation between a preference for impersonal sexual liaisons and sexual assault. Individuals with psychopathic traits tend to avoid emotional intimacy and favor impersonal sex, as do hyper-masculine men.
They found that men's sexual decisions varied more from man-to-man than for a given man across different scenarios. Stated plainly, their findings suggest that the use of sexual assault tactics appears to be more about who the man is characterologically rather than the particulars of the sexual situation in which he is found.The only aspect of the situation that reliably mattered was the level of sexual intimacy at the time the partner gave her refusal.
While clear, direct communication about sex is important, the findings suggest that the power of no isn't absolute; its influence on men's decision-making wanes as the level of intimacy ramps up.
Not all men pose sexual dangers, Mattson stressed; a sizeable subgroup of study subjects respected a woman's refusal and reported that they wouldn't pressure or coerce her in any way. However, even some of the "nice guys" were susceptible to prevailing rape myths, suggesting that education may play an important role in preventing sexual transgressions.

Unless you know someone well, it may be challenging to figure out whether they believe rape myths or have psychopathic traits. Hypermasculinity, however, tends to be performative and may be easier to spot.
Part 2

Many troubling characteristics have a common theme: a need for self-serving hierarchical relationships, so pay attention to how he treats his friends and other people around him. People with psychopathic traits sometimes present as charming and have no reservations about lying to gain trust, making them trickier to weed out.

On the law enforcement and policy front, it's important to know that a subset of men is likely to be sexually transgressive regardless of the situation.
Sex education campaigns that focus on the need for affirmative consent are unlikely to sway these individuals, who often aren't held accountable due to roadblocks in reporting and prosecuting sexual assault.

What can help is outreach to victims, lessening their feelings of shame and self-blame while encouraging reporting and training third parties who are likely to interact with victims, such as emergency room staff.
While the study focused on heterosexual sex and casual hookups, sexual violence spans both the gender spectrum and relationship type.

 Allison M. McKinnon et al, Does No Mean No? Situational and Dispositional Factors Influence Emerging Adult Men's Intentions to Use Assault Tactics in Response to Women's Sexual Refusal During Hookups, Sexual Abuse (2024). DOI: 10.1177/10790632241268527

Part 3

**

Diabetes reversed with stem cells
A woman with type 1 diabetes started producing her own insulin less than three months after a transplant of reprogrammed stem cells. This case represents the first successful treatment for the disease using stem cells from the recipient’s own body, which could avoid the need for immunosuppressants. She was injected with the equivalent of 1.5 million stem-cell-derived islets in June 2023. While promising, the woman’s cells must continue to produce insulin for up to five years before considering her ‘cured'.

The studies are among a handful of pioneering trials using stem cells to treat diabetes, which affects close to half a billion people worldwide. 

https://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674(24)01022-5?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0092867424010225%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03129-3?utm_source=Live+...

One-electron bond 

Scientists have observed a single-electron covalent bond between two carbon atoms for the fi.... Researchers synthesized a molecule with a stable ‘shell’ of fused carbon rings that stretched out a carbon–carbon bond in its centre. The pull makes it susceptible to losing one electron in an oxidation reaction, leaving the elusive one-electron bond. With the new finding, the team hopes to better understand what defines a chemical bond in the first place. “The covalent bond is one of the most important concepts in chemistry,” says chemist Takuya Shimajiri. “At what point does a bond qualify as covalent, and at what point does it not?”

Nature | 5 min read
 Nature paper

Can a virus reverse antibiotic resistance?

Bacteriophages — viruses that infect bacteria — are being used alongside antibiotics in a two-pronged attack to treat bacterial infections. Some phages target the ‘efflux pumps’ that bacteria use to expel unwanted molecules from inside their cells. Bacteria treated with phages face a dilemma: if they remove the efflux pumps to evade the phages, then antibiotics will kill them. If they evolve to modify the efflux pumps to expel the antibiotics, the phages will kill them instead. In the lab and in the clinic, researchers are having some success using phages to reverse antibiotic resistance, but it remains very case specific.

https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/health-disease/2024/ph...

Scientists Just Discovered a New Cell

Researchers  have found a whole new type of cell that fills a major hole in our understanding of how the mammal body heals.

For over a century, scientists have hypothesized that a cell like this existed – and now, an adult version has been found at last, hiding in the aorta of grown mice.

The discovery was nine years in the making. Researchers have named the cells 'EndoMac progenitors', and the team is now searching for similar players in the human body.

Myelin fatty acid metabolism could serve as an energy reserve for the central nervous system

The brains of mammals expend a significant amount of energy in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). This is the molecule that cells use to transfer energy, ultimately fueling several biological processes.

Unlike other organs that have fat cells, neurons and other cells in the central nervous system (CNS) have so far not been known to possess obvious local energy reserves. While astrocytes can use stored glycogen to temporarily protect neurons in the event of low blood sugar levels (i.e., hypoglycemia), a persistent lack of glucose has been found to contribute to neurodegeneration in the long-term.

Researchers   worldwide recently carried out a study investigating the contribution of glial fatty acid metabolism to the storage of energy that can also be used by other cells in the CNS.

Their findings, published in Nature Neuroscience, suggest that the oligodendroglial lipid metabolism can serve as an energy reserve, helping to overcome glucose deprivation and associated neurodegeneration.

Their experiments showed that lack of glucose was surprisingly well tolerated by oligodendrocytes, but only if they could degrade fatty acids from myelin and generate ATP by oxidizing the breakdown products in mitochondria.

When conducting further experiments, the researchers found that the energy generated by oligodendrocytes from lipids could also support the electrical spiking activity of myelinated axons in the optic nerve. Using cell-specific mouse mutants, they showed that oligodendroglial peroxisomes, small organelles found within oligodendrocytes and myelin, also play a role in the turnover of fatty acids.

The findings gathered by them suggest that the myelinated brain of adult mammals could possess a significant reserve of energy that can help to transiently make up for shortages in energy. These findings could have important implications for the study of disorders associated with the loss of brain white matter as a result of starvation, such as anorexia nervosa.

Neurodegenerative diseases that are associated with gradual myelin loss may also reflect this mechanism of metabolizing fatty acids from the myelin sheath.

Ebrahim Asadollahi et al, Oligodendroglial fatty acid metabolism as a central nervous system energy reserve, Nature Neuroscience (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41593-024-01749-6.

Researchers witness nanoscale water formation in real time

For the first time ever, researchers have witnessed—in real time and at the molecular-scale—hydrogen and oxygen atoms merge to form tiny, nano-sized bubbles of water.

The event occurred as part of a new  study, during which scientists sought to understand how palladium, a rare metallic element, catalyzes the gaseous reaction to generate water. By witnessing the reaction at the nanoscale, the  team unraveled how the process occurs and even uncovered new strategies to accelerate it.

Because the reaction does not require extreme conditions, the researchers say it could be harnessed as a practical solution for rapidly generating water in arid environments, including on other planets.

The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Yukun Liu et al, Unraveling the adsorption-limited hydrogen oxidation reaction at palladium surface via in situ electron microscopy, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2024). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2408277121

Why is Mount Everest so high? Because a river is pushing up Mount Everest's peak!

Mount Everest is about 15 to 50 meters taller than it would otherwise be because of uplift caused by a nearby eroding river gorge, and continues to grow because of it, finds a new study.

The study, published in Nature Geoscience, found that erosion from a river network about 75 kilometers from Mount Everest is carving away a substantial gorge. The loss of this landmass is causing the mountain to spring upwards by as much as 2 millimeters a year and has already increased its height by between 15 and 50 meters over the past 89,000 years.

At 8,849 meters high Mount Everest  is the tallest mountain on Earth, and rises about 250 meters above the next tallest peak in the Himalayas. Everest is considered anomalously high for the mountain range, as the next three tallest peaks—K2, Kangchenjunga and Lhotse—all only differ by about 120 meters from each other.

A significant portion of this anomaly can be explained by an uplifting force caused by pressure from below Earth's crust after a nearby river eroded away a sizable amount of rocks and soil. It's an effect called isostatic rebound, where a section of the Earth's crust that loses mass flexes and "floats" upwards because the intense pressure of the liquid mantle below is greater than the downward force of gravity after the loss of mass.

It's a gradual process, usually only a few millimeters a year, but over geological timeframes can make a significant difference to the Earth's surface.

The researchers found that, because of this process, Mount Everest has grown by about 15 to 50 meters over the last 89,000 years, since the nearby Arun river merged with the adjacent Kosi river network.

Part 1

Mount Everest is a remarkable mountain of myth and legend and it's still growing. Our research shows that as the nearby river system cuts deeper, the loss of material is causing the mountain to spring further upwards.

Today, the Arun river runs to the east of Mount Everest and merges downstream with the larger Kosi river system. Over millennia, the Arun has carved out a substantial gorge along its banks, washing away billions of tons of earth and sediment.
An interesting river system exists in the Everest region. The upstream Arun river flows east at high altitude with a flat valley. It then abruptly turns south as the Kosi river, dropping in elevation and becoming steeper. This unique topography, indicative of an unsteady state, likely relates to Everest's extreme height.
The uplift is not limited to Mount Everest, and affects neighboring peaks including Lhotse and Makalu, the world's fourth and fifth highest peaks respectively. The isostatic rebound boosts the heights of these peaks by a similar amount as it does Everest, though Makalu, located closest to the Arun river, would experience a slightly higher rate of uplift.
Mount Everest and its neighboring peaks are growing because the isostatic rebound is raising them up faster than erosion is wearing them down. We can see them growing by about two millimeters a year using GPS instruments and now we have a better understanding of what's driving it.
By looking at the erosion rates of the Arun, the Kosi and other rivers in the region, the researchers were able to determine that about 89,000 years ago the Arun river joined and merged with the Kosi river network, a process called drainage piracy.

In doing so, more water was funneled through the Kosi river, increasing its erosive power and taking more of the landscape's soils and sediments with it. With more of the land washed away, it triggered an increased rate of uplift, pushing the mountains' peaks higher and higher.
The interaction between the erosion of the Arun river and the upward pressure of the Earth's mantle gives Mount Everest a boost, pushing it up higher than it would otherwise be.

Jin-Gen Dai, Recent uplift of Chomolungma enhanced by river drainage piracy, Nature Geoscience (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41561-024-01535-w. www.nature.com/articles/s41561-024-01535-w

Part 2

New mission to create total solar eclipses in space

A  team of researchers  are working on the launch of a spacecraft mission that will allow us to view the sun's atmosphere in more detail than ever before.

The proposed MESOM mission will enable researchers to study the conditions that create solar storms, leading to improvements in forecasts of space weather on Earth. The MESOM spacecraft will fly on a peculiar trajectory enabled by the gravitational attraction of the Earth, the sun and the moon, and will use the shadow of the moon to re-create a total solar eclipse in space once every lunar month lasting almost 50 minutes.

Total solar eclipses seen from Earth are much shorter and only last between 10 seconds and 7.5 minutes, with the annular solar eclipse in the Southern Hemisphere this Wednesday 2 October expected to last around seven minutes. Creating a longer eclipse in space will enable the MESOM team to take high-quality images and measurements of the sun's corona, filling gaps in existing understanding of the physical processes taking place in the solar atmosphere that lead to space weather.

Space weather is not a danger to people or animals on Earth, but solar flares and eruptions from the sun known as coronal mass ejections can cause severe disruption to power grids, satellites and other communication technologies on which modern society depends.

MESOM will offer scientists a unique opportunity to study and understand how the sun creates and controls weather in space.

But MESOM also offers the general public an opportunity to engage with the beauty and spectacle of a total solar eclipse as all their images will be readily available. They aim to reveal the secrets of the sun while inspiring a new generation of space scientists and engineers.

MESOM is an incredibly exciting mission which will advance our scientific understanding of the solar atmosphere and space weather to new levels, enabling us to provide more accurate forecasts and take mitigating action.

By creating eclipses that last up to 48 minutes in space, rather than the maximum 7.5 minutes we manage to see on Earth, we stand a much better chance of unlocking their secrets.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2024/sep/new-mission-create-total-solar-...

A cooling system that works on gravity instead of electricity

This device needs no electricity, as it extracts water from the air using nothing more than gravity and relies on cheap, readily available materials.

Along with keeping the solar cells and other semiconductor technologies cool, the water can be repurposed for irrigation, washing, cooling buildings on which the solar cells are placed, and other applications.

Scientists estimate that the atmosphere contains six times more water than all the fresh water in the rivers combined. This water can be collected by atmospheric water harvesting technologies.

While these technologies work reasonably well, in arid environments they require electricity to harvest practical amounts of water. This demand risks deterring the adoption of solar cells in rural regions , where electricity infrastructure is costly.

One reason for the low efficiency is that the water adheres to the surface of the harvesting device.

Researchers found that by adding a lubricant coating that is a mix of a commercial polymer and silicon oil, they could collect more water by relying on only gravity.

The system doesn't consume any electricity, leading to energy savings. Moreover, it doesn't rely on any mechanical parts like compressors or fans, reducing the maintenance over traditional systems, leading to further savings.

Shakeel Ahmad et al, Lubricated Surface in a Vertical Double‐Sided Architecture for Radiative Cooling and Atmospheric Water Harvesting, Advanced Materials (2024). DOI: 10.1002/adma.202404037

Well-designed AI tools can help clean toxic comments up

Imagine scrolling through social media  only to be interrupted by insulting and harassing comments. What if an artificial intelligence (AI) tool stepped in to remove the abuse before you even saw it?

This isn't science fiction. Commercial AI tools like ToxMod and Bodyguard.ai are already used to monitor interactions in real time across social media and gaming platforms. They can detect and respond to toxic behavior.

The idea of an all-seeing AI monitoring our every move might sound Orwellian, but these tools could be key to making the internet a safer place.

However, for AI moderation to succeed, it needs to prioritize values like privacy, transparency, explainability and fairness. So can we ensure AI can be trusted to make our online spaces better? Two recent research projects into AI-driven moderation show this can be done—with more work ahead. 

https://www.ai-ally.org/

https://jigsaw.google.com/harassment-manager/

https://hateandhope.righttobe.org/pages/about-page

https://theconversation.com/online-spaces-are-rife-with-toxicity-we...

Patient with type 1 diabetes functionally cured using stem cell injections

A team of medical researchers affiliated with a large number of institutions in China has functionally cured a female patient with type 1 diabetes by injecting her with programmed stem cells.

For their study published in the journal Cell, the group extracted cells from the patient, reverted them to a pluripotent state, programmed them to grow into pancreatic islets, and then injected them back into her abdomen.

For unknown reasons, some people experience an immune attack that results in the destruction of islets in the pancreas that are responsible for making insulin. These incidents typically happen during the teen years, which is why the disease is also known as juvenile diabetes.

Because the islets are destroyed, any cure for the disease must involve replacing the islets somehow, either through transplantation from a donor, or in this new example, by using the person's own cells as the basis for creating pluripotent stem cells, which can be programmed to grow into replacement islets.

In this new effort, the researchers collected cells from three type 1 diabetes patients—all the cells were reverted to a pluripotent state and then programmed to grow into pancreatic islets. The researchers note that they modified the standard approach by exposing the cells to certain molecules rather than introducing proteins. The treatment process for the patients was staggered over time so that findings from the first patient could be applied to the second and then the third.

In a procedure lasting approximately 30 minutes, the researchers injected 1.5 million of the islets they had grown into the abdomen of the first patient, a 25-year-old woman. Placing them in the abdomen allowed for easy monitoring and removal if necessary. Two and a half months later, testing showed the patient was producing enough of her own insulin to stop injections.

After a year, she was still producing her own insulin. The research team notes that the patient was already receiving immunosuppressant drugs due to a prior liver transplant; thus, it is still not known if her immune system will replicate the type of attack that led her to have type 1 diabetes in the first place.

Shusen Wang et al, Transplantation of chemically induced pluripotent stem-cell-derived islets under abdominal anterior rectus sheath in a type 1 diabetes patient, Cell (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2024.09.004

 Rare human death from rabies

A Minnesota resident who came into contact with a bat in July died of rabies, the state's department of health announced Friday.

The person's death marks a rare occurrence, as fewer than 10 people in the the U.S. die from rabies each year, according to the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. The person is over the age of 65 and was exposed to a bat in western Minnesota in July, the Minnesota Department of Health said.

CDC officials confirmed the rabies diagnosis at its lab in Atlanta on Sept. 20. In a news release, the state health department said it was working to evaluate whether more people were exposed to the disease, but said there was no ongoing risk to the public

Officials said the fatal case advised the public to avoid contact with bats, whose teeth are so tiny that a bite may not be felt or even leave a noticeable mark.

Rabies is caused by a virus that invades the central nervous system and is usually fatal in animals and humans. If left untreated, rabies is almost always fatal. But rabies treatment has proven to be nearly highly effective at preventing the disease after an exposure, state health officials said. Treatment must be started before symptoms of rabies appear, they added.

The number of rabies-related human deaths in the U.S. has declined from more than 100 annually in the early 1900s to less than five cases annually in recent years, the health department. About 70% of infections acquired in the country are attributed to bat exposures.

Source: The Associated Press

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Six dead from Marburg viral disease in Rwanda

Six people have been killed in Rwanda in an outbreak of Marburg virus, a highly infectious hemorrhagic fever similar to Ebola, the country's health ministry said recently.

The highly virulent microbe causes severe fever, often accompanied by bleeding and organ failure.

Marburg is part of the so-called filovirus family that also includes Ebola, which has wreaked havoc in several previous outbreaks in Africa.

Neighboring Tanzania reported cases of the disease in 2023, while Uganda experienced its last outbreak in 2017. The three countries share porous borders.

The suspected natural source of the Marburg virus is the African fruit bat, which carries the pathogen but does not fall sick from it.

The animals can pass the virus to primates in close proximity, including humans, and human-to-human transmission then occurs through contact with blood or other body fluids.

Fatality rates in confirmed cases have ranged from 24 percent to 88 percent in previous outbreaks, depending on the virus strain and case management, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

There are currently no vaccines or antiviral treatments, but potential treatments, including blood products, immune and drug therapies, as well as early candidate vaccines, are being evaluated.

Source: AFP

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The fungal infection valley fever

Some areas of the U.S. are experiencing a recent uptick in cases of a fungal lung infection called valley fever. 

Valley fever is a fungus. It lives in the soil, and it's endemic, or known to be in regions in the Southwest, such as Arizona, lower California, New Mexico and parts of Mexico.

Valley fever is transmitted via inhalation of spores from the soil, especially during dusty months or high-dust exposure, such as in construction zones.

"Initial symptoms of valley fever can be cough, difficulty breathing, shortness of breath, sometimes a rash and joint aches, and also associated fatigue.

Most people with a healthy immune system can fight off valley fever naturally, but those with immune problems or on certain medications may be at higher risk.

The people getting really significant illness are those that have immune problems, or if you have diabetes or if you're on immune-suppressing medications can really put you at risk.

The best way to prevent valley fever is to avoid high-dust exposure.

If at all possible, if it's really dusty outside and you can really see the dust in the air, try to stay indoors and try to avoid that inhalation of that high-dust exposure.

Source: Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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There arethree main types of blood cancers:

• Leukemias are cancers of the white blood cells in the bone marrow and blood and, rarely, the lymphatic system. The abnormal production of white blood cells can interfere with the body's ability to fight infections. There are several types of leukemia, including acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), acute myeloid leukemia (AML), chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and chronic myeloid leukemia (CML).
• Lymphomas are cancers of immune cells called lymphocytes. The two main types of lymphoma are Hodgkin lymphoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. These cancers can be slow-growing or fast-growing, and can be found in various parts of the body, including the lymph nodes, spleen and bone marrow.
• Myeloma, also known as multiple myeloma, is a cancer of the plasma cells, immune cells that are found in the bone marrow. When myeloma cells multiply, this can lead to bone damage, anemia, kidney problems, high blood calcium levels and a weakened immune system.

Common symptoms include: Fever, Drenching night sweats, Persistent fatigue, Weakness Bone/joint pain, Unexplained weight loss, Swollen lymph nodes, liver or spleen ,Anemia.

Deep brain stimulation shows immediate improvement in arm and hand function post-brain injury

Deep brain stimulation may provide immediate improvement in arm and hand strength and function weakened by traumatic brain injury or stroke, researchers reported recently in Nature Communications.

Encouraging results from extensive tests in monkeys and humans open a path for a new clinical application of an already widely used brain stimulation technology and offer insights into neural mechanisms underlying movement deficits caused by brain injury.

Brain lesions caused by serious brain trauma or stroke can disrupt neural connections between the motor cortex, a key brain region essential for controlling voluntary movement, and the muscles. Weakening of these connections prevents effective activation of muscles and results in movement deficits, including partial or complete arm and hand paralysis.

To boost the activation of existing but weakened connections, researchers proposed using deep brain stimulation (DBS), a surgical procedure that involves placing tiny electrodes in specific areas of the brain to deliver electrical impulses that regulate abnormal brain activity. Over the past several decades, DBS has revolutionized the treatment of neurological conditions such as Parkinson's disease by providing a way to control symptoms that were once difficult to manage with medication alone.

DBS has been life-changing for many patients. Now, thanks to ongoing advancements in the safety and precision of these devices, DBS is being explored as a promising option for helping stroke survivors recover their motor functions.

Part 1

Taking cues from another successful Pitt project that used electrical stimulation of the spinal cord to restore arm function in individuals affected by stroke, scientists hypothesized that stimulating the motor thalamus—a structure nested deep in the brain that acts as a key relay hub of movement control—using DBS could help restore movements that are essential for tasks of daily living, such as object grasping.

However, because the theory has not been tested before, they first had to test it in monkeys, which are the only animals that have the same organization of the connections between the motor cortex and the muscles as humans.
To understand the mechanism of how DBS of the motor thalamus helps improve voluntary arm movement and to finesse the specific location of the implant and the optimal stimulation frequency, researchers implanted the FDA-approved stimulation device into monkeys that had brain lesions affecting how effectively they could use their hands.

As soon as the stimulation was turned on, it significantly improved activation of muscles and grip force. Importantly, no involuntary movement was observed.

To verify that the procedure could benefit humans, the same stimulation parameters were used in a patient who was set to undergo DBS implantation into the motor thalamus to help with arm tremors caused by brain injury from a serious motor vehicle accident that resulted in severe paralysis in both arms.

As soon as the stimulation was turned on again, the range and strength of arm motion was immediately improved. The participant was able to lift a moderately heavy weight and reach, grasp and lift a drinking cup more efficiently and smoothly than without the stimulation.

To help bring this technology to more patients in the clinic, researchers are now working to test the long-term effects of DBS and determine whether chronic stimulation could further improve arm and hand function in individuals affected by traumatic brain injury or stroke.

Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-52477-1. www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-52477-1

Part 2

Pathogens are thriving in the plastisphere

Plastic pollution is creating a ‘plastisphere’: a widespread habitat that includes pathogenic viruses and antimicrobial-resistant bacteria, a group of environmental researchers highlights. The problem has no easy fix, but the ecosystems of the plastisphere must be thoroughly studied, with..., if we’re to mitigate the risks posed by the pathogens lurking within.

Nature | 

Five-mile asteroid impact crater below Atlantic captured in 'exquisite' detail by seismic data

New images of an asteroid impact crater buried deep below the floor of the Atlantic Ocean have been published recently by researchers.

 The images confirm the 9km Nadir Crater, located 300m under the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, was caused by an asteroid smashing into Earth at the end of the Cretaceous period around 66 million years ago. That's the same age as the dinosaur-killing 200 km wide, Chicxulub impact crater in Mexico.

The images have helped the researchers determine what happened in the minutes following impact: The formation of an initial bowl-shaped crater, rocks turned to a fluid-like state and flowing upwards to the crater floor, the creation of a damage zone covering thousands of square kilometers beyond the crater, and an 800-meter-plus high tsunami that would have traveled across the Atlantic ocean.

The data revealed a depression more than 8.5km wide, which could be an asteroid impact crater. The data suggested it was from an asteroid hundreds of meters wide hitting the planet around 66 million years ago.

High-resolution, 3D seismic data was captured by TGS, a global geophysical company and shared with geologists. The data proves that an asteroid caused the Nadir Crater.

Craters on the surface are usually heavily eroded and we can only see what is exposed, whereas craters on other planetary bodies usually only show the surface expression.

These data allow us to image this fully in three dimensions and peel back the layers of sedimentary rock to look at the crater at all levels.

The new images paint a picture of the catastrophic event.

 The asteroid  was 450–500m wide, because of the larger crater size as shown by the 3D data.

Researchers can also tell it came from about 20–40 degrees to the northeast, because of spiraling thrust-generated ridges surrounding the crater's central peak—those are only formed following a low-angle oblique impact.

It would have hit Earth at about 20 km per second, or 72,000 km per hour.

Part 1

Using the data, the scientists created a timeline of what happened in the seconds and minutes after impact.
After the impact and the central uplift forming, the soft sediments surrounding the crater flowed inwards towards the evacuated crater floor, creating a visible 'brim.'
The earthquake shaking caused by the impact appears to have liquefied the sediments below the seabed across the entire plateau, causing faults to form below the seabed.
The impact was also associated with large landslides as the plateau margin collapsed below the ocean.

As well as this, there is evidence for a train of tsunami waves going away from, then back towards the crater, with large resurge scars preserving evidence of this catastrophic event.
Humans have never witnessed an asteroid of this size crashing into Earth.

 Uisdean Nicholson et al, 3D anatomy of the Cretaceous–Paleogene age Nadir Crater, Communications Earth & Environment (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s43247-024-01700-4

Part 2

Microbiome-directed food speeds recovery in children with severe acute malnutrition, trial finds

A team of biologists, nutritionists and gut biome specialists has found via a trial run at several hospitals  that giving children suffering from severe malnutrition a microbiome-based food helps them recover faster than giving them ready-to-use therapeutic or supplementary foods (RUFs).

For many years, the standard of care for children suffering from severe acute malnutrition has been feeding them RUFs, which are generally made by mixing peanuts, oil, butter, and sugar into a quantity of powdered milk. Such a mix provides a lot of calories in a hurry, helping children who are starving recover as quickly as possible.

In this new study, published in Science Translational Medicine, the researchers have found that a different kind of food might be a better option.

Several years ago, researchers discovered that when children experience a severe lack of food, in addition to losing weight and an ability to ward off diseases, their intestinal biome becomes less diverse—without food to process, gut bacteria levels dwindle. Experiments with mice showed that those who were malnourished who were given food designed to ramp up the biome gained weight faster than those who were placed on just a high-calorie diet.

Part 1

The researchers wanted to know if the same was true for humans. To find out, they first conducted animal experiments to find the right ingredients that would stimulate the gut biome and then made a supplement with the best of them. They then gave the supplement they had developed to 64 children suffering from severe malnutrition in several hospitals in Bangladesh.

Another 64 children also suffering from severe malnutrition were given RUFs. All the children in the study were assessed over the following three months. The research team found that those children receiving the biome-enhancing supplements gained weight faster than the children given RUFs.

They also found that those children receiving the new supplements had higher concentrations of the types of proteins in their blood that are needed for the proper growth of bones, muscles, and nerve cells in the brain.
The researchers conclude by suggesting that giving malnourished children biome-enhancing food can not only speed up recovery time but also prevent stunted growth.

Steven J. Hartman et al, A microbiome-directed therapeutic food for children recovering from severe acute malnutrition, Science Translational Medicine (2024). DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.adn2366

Part 2

Scientists find plant-like behaviour in human cells

A team of scientists has solved the structure of a protein known as "LYCHOS," which can detect and regulate cell growth by sensing cholesterol levels in the body.

Human cells need cholesterol for healthy growth, but the way cells and cholesterol interact is a delicate balance. When cell growth becomes abnormal, it can quickly become a driving force behind many types of cancer, neurological disorders and other diseases.

In their article published in Nature, the research team used cryo‐electron microscopy (cryo‐EM) to, for the first time, determine the 3D structure of LYCHOS and show that it is a unique hybrid of a cell transporter commonly found in plants (and not humans), and a G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR).

The GPCR and plant-like transporter work together to sense cholesterol and regulate cell growth, thus making LYCHOS an exciting new drug target for diseases perpetuated by abnormal cell growth that can lead to the formation of cancerous tumors and neurological dysfunction.

Their cryo-EM studies have revealed that human LYCHOS is a hybrid of a GPCR and a 'PIN-FORMED' (PIN) transporter, typically associated with the plant kingdom  and not previously thought to exist in humans.

Much like the process whereby plants move their stems and leaves toward light to receive the maximum energy for photosynthesis, the LYCHOS plant-like transporter helps human cells sense when there's enough cholesterol to start growing.

Charles Bayly-Jones et al, LYCHOS is a human hybrid of a plant-like PIN transporter and a GPCR, Nature (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08012-9

Some plants have a backup plan to pass down accurate chromosome copies

Plants rely on fine-tuned genetic processes to pass down accurate copies of chromosomes to future generations. These processes sometimes involve billions of moving parts. Even the tiniest disruption can have a cascading effect. So, for plants like Arabidopsis thaliana, it's good to have a backup plan.

Chromosomes have to be accurately partitioned every time a cell divides. 

For that to happen, each chromosome has a centromere. In plants, centromeres control chromosome partitioning with the help of a molecule called DDM1.

When humans lose their version of DDM1, centromeres can't divide evenly. This causes a severe genetic condition called ICF syndrome. But if the molecule is so important, why isn't Arabidopsis affected when DDM1 is lost?

Scientists found that in yeast, centromere function is controlled by small RNAs. That process is called RNAi. Plants actually have both DDM1 and RNAi.

When they isolated these two in Arabidopsis to see what happens , the plants looked really horrible.

When the team looked closer, they found that a single transposon inside chromosome 5 was responsible for the defects. Transposons move around the genome, switching genes on and off. In Arabidopsis, they trigger DDM1 or RNAi to help centromeres divide. But when DDM1 and RNAi are missing, the process is disrupted.

They found very few copies of this transposon anywhere else in the genome.

But the centromere of chromosome 5 was infested with these things.

The scientists developed molecules called short hairpin RNAs that target the transposons.

Those small RNAs make up for the loss of DDM1. They recognized every copy of the transposon in the centromere and, amazingly, restored centromere function. So now the plants were fertile again. They make seeds. They look much better.

Of course, it's not all about plants. In humans, uneven centromere division has been linked to conditions like ICF and early cancer progression. 

Atsushi Shimada et al, Retrotransposon addiction promotes centromere function via epigenetically activated small RNAs, Nature Plants (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41477-024-01773-1

Science finds link between excessive sweating, sensitive skin

If you sweat excessively, you're likely to have sensitive skin as well, with new research confirming the two go hand-in-hand.

It uncovered a significant link excessive sweating -- a condition known as primary hyperhidrosis -- and sensitive skin.
People with primary hyperhidrosis sweat four times more than needed to cool the body -- even when they're not exposed to high temperatures or exercising. The condition affects specific areas such as the hands, feet, face and armpits.

People with sensitive skin often experience itching, burning and tightness when exposed to heat, sweat, skincare products and stress.

Researchers found that folks with hyperhydrosis are more likely than most people to have sensitive skin. Sensitivity often goes beyond areas that sweat excessively, showing that perspiration isn't the cause of their skin sensitivity.

Someone with primary hyperhidrosis is more likely to have sensitive skin than the general public, even in areas where there is no excessive sweating.

The study also showed that:

• The more severe the hyperhidrosis, the greater the skin sensitivity
• Excessive sweating was most often found in the hands
• Respondents with both issues reported frequent sensitivity to products marketed for sensitive skin

Erika T. McCormick MD et al. Primary Hyperhidrosis and Sensitive Skin: Exploring the Link with Predictive Machine Learning-Based Classification Models. Journal of the Drugs and Dermatology. (2024) DOI: 10.36849/JDD.8461

Researchers create artificial plants that purify indoor air, generate electricity

Most people spend their time indoors and the air we breathe at work, school or home affects our overall health and well-being.

Many sources can generate very toxic materials, like building materials and carpets. We breathe out and breathe in, and that builds up carbon dioxide levels. Also, there are risks from cooking and infiltration from the outdoors.

Most air purification systems, however, are expensive, cumbersome and require frequent cleaning or filter replacement to function at optimum levels.

So researchers are repurposing their research about bacteria-powered biobatteries—ingestible and otherwise—into a new idea for artificial plants that can feed off carbon dioxide, give off oxygen and even generate a little power.

They outline their results in a paper recently published in the journal Advanced Sustainable Systems.

Using five biological solar cells and their photosynthetic bacteria, researchers created an artificial leaf "for fun," then realized the concept has wider implications. They built the first plant with five leaves, then tested its carbon dioxide capture rates and oxygen generation capability.

Although power generation of around 140 microwatts is a secondary benefit, they hope to improve the technology to achieve a minimum output of more than 1 milliwatt. They also want to integrate an energy storage system, such as lithium-ion batteries or supercapacitors.

Other upgrades could include using multiple bacteria species to ensure long-term viability and developing ways to minimize maintenance, such as water and nutrient delivery systems.

With some fine-tuning, these air purifying artificial plants could be a part of every household.

 Maryam Rezaie et al, Cyanobacterial Artificial Plants for Enhanced Indoor Carbon Capture and Utilization, Advanced Sustainable Systems (2024). DOI: 10.1002/adsu.202400401

GPS jamming? No problem, low Earth orbit satellites hold the key to resilient, interference-free navigation

Increasingly occurring GPS jamming in some places disrupts daily civilian activities, posing major navigational challenges. A new patented method using low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites and massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) antennas addresses these location vulnerability issues, presenting means for precise navigation even where traditional global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) fail.

Part 1

Some researchers are working on this problem.

They are exploring advanced positioning technologies to enhance navigation accuracy and reliability. The research covers multiple areas, including the development of a precise ultra-wideband (UWB) system for dense, indoor environments, which is also known as "the indoor GPS," improvements in outdoor vehicular positioning using GNSS, and a novel LEO satellite-based positioning method that addresses many of the limitations of current GNSS systems. Elsanhoury's work involved extensive testing and simulations, demonstrating significant advancements in both indoor and outdoor positioning accuracy.

The research focuses on two distinct technologies: UWB systems for precise indoor positioning and LEO satellites for enhanced outdoor navigation. The UWB technology significantly enhances positioning accuracy within dense indoor settings, while the LEO satellite-based system addresses the limitations of traditional GNSS. 

For outdoor environments, the research work introduces a novel LEO satellite-based positioning method. This approach addresses the impact of GPS jamming and interference, which is a persistent challenge in Finland and other regions. The LEO satellite system employs multiple signal beams to enhance navigation reliability, ensuring accurate positioning even when traditional GNSS systems are compromised. The simulation results conducted were very promising as the new LEO-based method outperformed GNSS amid challenging road conditions, with improved LEO accuracy of 9.15 meters compared to GNSS accuracy of 26.6 meters.

The new, patented method has received international endorsement and recognition.

The development of advanced UWB systems is crucial for navigating complex indoor spaces. The technology has shown resilience in dense industrial environments, also overcoming the common wireless communication impairments. Integrating UWB with other assisting technologies such as inertial motion sensors can lead to more precise location information, and solving challenges posed by traditional systems in confined areas.

 Elsanhoury, Mahmoud. Towards Precision Positioning for Smart Logistics Using Ultra Wide-Band Systems and LEO Satellite-Based Technologies, (2024). Doctoral dissertation. University of Vaasa, urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-395-146-4

Part 2

Scientists inject bacteria into fungi to study endosymbiosis

Endosymbiosis is a fascinating biological phenomenon in which an organism lives inside another. Such an unusual relationship is often beneficial for both parties. Even in our bodies, we find remnants of such cohabitation: mitochondria evolved from an ancient endosymbiosis. Long ago, bacteria entered other cells and stayed. This coexistence laid the foundation for mitochondria and thus the cells of plants, animals, and fungi.

What is still poorly understood, however, is how an endosymbiosis as a lifestyle actually arises. A bacterium that more or less accidentally ends up in a completely different host cell generally has a hard time. It needs to survive, multiply, and be passed on to the next generation. Otherwise, it dies out. And to not harm the host, it must not claim too many nutrients for itself and grow too quickly. In other words, if the host and its resident cannot get along, the relationship ends.

To study the beginnings of such a special relationship between two organisms, a team of researchers initiated such partnerships in the laboratory. The scientists observed what exactly happens at the beginning of a possible endosymbiosis. They have just published their study in the scientific journal Nature.

Researchers first developed a method to inject bacteria into cells of the fungus Rhizopus microsporus without destroying them. They used E. coli bacteria on the one hand and bacteria of the genus Mycetohabitans on the other. The latter are natural endosymbionts of another Rhizopus fungus. For the experiment, however, the researchers used a strain that does not form an endosymbiosis in nature. They then observed what happened to the enforced cohabitation under the microscope.

After the injection of the E. coli bacteria, both the fungus and the bacteria continued to grow, the latter eventually so rapidly that the fungus mounted an immune response against the bacteria. The fungus protected itself from the bacteria by encapsulating them. This prevented the bacteria from being passed on to the next generation of fungi.

This was not the case with the injected Mycetohabitans bacteria: While the fungus was forming spores, some of the bacteria managed to get into them and thus were passed on to the next generation. The fact that the bacteria are actually transmitted to the next generation of fungi via the spores was a breakthrough in this research.

Part 1

When the researchers allowed the spores with the resident bacteria to germinate, they found that they germinated less frequently and that the young fungi grew more slowly than without them. The endosymbiosis initially lowered the general fitness of the affected fungi.
The researchers continued the experiment over several generations of fungi, deliberately selecting those fungi whose spores contained bacteria. This enabled the fungus to recover and produce more inhabited but viable spores. As the researchers were able to show with genetic analyses, the fungus changed during this experiment and adapted to its resident.
The researchers also found that the resident, together with its host, produced biologically active molecules that could help the host obtain nutrients and defend itself against predators such as nematodes or amoebae.

The initial disadvantage can thus become an advantage.

In their study, the researchers show how fragile early endosymbiotic systems are. The fact that the host's fitness initially declines could mean the early demise of such a system under natural conditions.
For new endosymbioses to arise and stabilize, there needs to be an advantage to living together.
The prerequisite for this is that the prospective resident brings with it properties that favor endosymbiosis. For the host, it is an opportunity to acquire new characteristics in one swoop by incorporating another organism, even if it requires adaptations.

In evolution, endosymbioses have shown how successful they ultimately can become.

Julia Vorholt, Inducing novel endosymbioses by implanting bacteria in fungi, Nature (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08010-x. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08010-x

Part 2

How a bacterium becomes a permanent resident in a fungus

47 tigers dead in Vietnam zoos due to bird flu

Forty-seven tigers, three lions and a panther have died in zoos in south Vietnam due to the H5N1 bird flu virus, state media reported recently.

The deaths occurred in August and September at the private My Quynh safari park in Long An province and the Vuon Xoai zoo in Dong Nai, near Ho Chi Minh City, the official Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported.

According to test results from the National Center for Animal Health Diagnosis, the animals died "because of H5N1 type A virus", VNA said.

No zoo staff members in close contact with the animals had experienced respiratory symptoms, the VNA report added.

Education for Nature Vietnam (ENV), an NGO that focuses on wildlife conservation, said there were a total of 385 tigers living in captivity in Vietnam at the end of 2023.

About 310 are kept at 16 privately owned farms and zoos, while the rest are in state-owned facilities.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says that since 2022, there have been increasing reports of deadly outbreaks among mammals caused by influenza viruses, including H5N1.

It also says H5N1 infections can range from mild to severe in humans, and in some cases can even be fatal.

Vietnam notified the WHO about a human fatality from the virus in March.

In 2004, dozens of tigers died from bird flu or were culled at the world's largest breeding farm in Thailand.

Source: News agencies

Chemists use light to replace an oxygen atom with a nitrogen atom in a molecule

A team of chemists  has succeeded in pulling an oxygen atom from a molecule and replacing it with a nitrogen atom. In their study, published in the journal Science, the group used photocatalysis to edit a furan in their lab.

Prior research has shown that some complex molecules can be edited using chemical reactions, but they are few and far between. So chemists must synthesize molecules from scratch when they want to change a small part of a molecule, or even just one atom, for testing.

Such work has shown that even minor changes can have a major impact - changing a single atom in a heterocycle can have a profound impact on the efficacy of a drug. Chemists have been looking for more efficient ways to edit molecules—or more specifically, to remove a single atom and replace it with another.

In this new study, the research team developed a technique they describe as a pencil-and-eraser technique in which one atom is erased and another penciled in.
The researchers were inspired by a paper written by chemists Axel Couture and Alain Lablache-Combier in 1971, in which they used ultraviolet light to convert a furan to a N-propylpyrrole as a way of improving yield. They used ultraviolet light to swap an oxygen atom in a furan with a nitrogen atom.
Part 1

Such editing, the team notes, is particularly challenging due to issues with delocalization—prior attempts have involved applying high temperatures or radiation. Neither approach has been found to be suitable.

In this new approach, the team used light as a photocatalyst for activating a furan ring. The technique can be used to carry out single electron oxidation on a furan, resulting in radicalization.

The approach, they note, allows for a facile reaction that is susceptible to the addition of an amine. That leads to a cascade of electron and proton transfer between the product and the photocatalyst, resulting in the creation of a ring aldehyde intermediate.

Donghyeon Kim et al, Photocatalytic furan-to-pyrrole conversion, Science (2024). DOI: 10.1126/science.adq6245

Ellie F. Plachinski et al, Single-atom editing with light, Science (2024). DOI: 10.1126/science.ads2595

End of Jetlag: Scientists discover secret to regulating our body clock

Scientists have discovered a revolutionary way to put an end to jet lag by uncovering the secret at the tail end of Casein Kinase 1 delta (CK1δ), a protein that regulates our body clock. This breakthrough, achieved by researchers  offers a new approach to adjusting our circadian rhythms, the natural 24-hour cycles that influence sleep-wake patterns and overall daily functions.

Published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), their findings could pave the way for new approaches to treating disorders related to the body clock.

CK1δ regulates circadian rhythms by tagging other proteins involved in our biological clock to fine-tune the timing of these rhythms. In addition to modifying other proteins, CK1δ itself can be tagged, thereby altering its own ability to regulate the proteins involved in running the body's internal clock.

Previous research identified two distinct versions of CK1δ, known as isoforms δ1 and δ2, which vary by just 16 building blocks or amino acids right at the end of the protein in a part called the C-terminal tail. Yet these small differences significantly impact CK1δ's function. While it was known that when these proteins are tagged, their ability to regulate the body clock decreases, no one knew exactly how this happened.

Using advanced spectroscopy and spectrometry techniques to zoom in on the tails, the researchers found that how the proteins are tagged is determined by their distinct tail sequences.

The findings pinpoint to three specific sites on CK1δ's tail where phosphate groups can attach, and these sites are crucial for controlling the protein's activity. When these spots get tagged with a phosphate group, CK1δ becomes less active, which means it doesn't influence our circadian rhythms as effectively. Using high-resolution analysis, we were able to pinpoint the exact sites involved .

Part 1

They found that the δ1 tail interacts more extensively with the main part of the protein, leading to greater self-inhibition compared to δ2. This means that δ1 is more tightly regulated by its tail than δ2. When these sites are mutated or removed, δ1 becomes more active, which leads to changes in circadian rhythms. In contrast, δ2 does not have the same regulatory effect from its tail region.
This discovery highlights how a small part of CK1δ can greatly influence its overall activity. This self-regulation is vital for keeping CK1δ activity balanced, which, in turn, helps regulate our circadian rhythms.

The study also addressed the wider implications of these findings. CK1δ plays a role in several important processes beyond circadian rhythms, including cell division, cancer development, and certain neurodegenerative diseases. By better understanding how CK1δ's activity is regulated, scientists could open new avenues for treating not just circadian rhythm disorders but also a range of conditions.

Rachel L. Harold et al, Isoform-specific C-terminal phosphorylation drives autoinhibition of Casein kinase 1, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2024). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2415567121

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After injury,  comb jellies can fuse to become one!

Researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on October 7 have made the surprising discovery that one species of comb jelly (Mnemiopsis leidyi) can fuse, such that two individuals readily turn into one following an injury. Afterwards, they rapidly synchronize their muscle contractions and merge digestive tracts to share food.

These  findings suggest that ctenophores may lack a system for allorecognition, which is the ability to distinguish between self and others.

Additionally, the data imply that two separate individuals can rapidly merge their nervous systems and share action potentials.

Researchers made the observation after keeping a population of the comb jellies in a seawater tank in the lab. They noticed an unusually large individual that seemed to have two backends and two sensory structures known as apical organs instead of one. They wondered if this unusual individual arose from the fusion of two injured jellies.

To find out, they removed partial lobes from other individuals and placed them close together in pairs. It turned out that, nine out of 10 times, it worked. The injured individuals became one, surviving for at least three weeks.

Further study showed that after a single night, the two original individuals seamlessly became one with no apparent separation between them. When the researchers poked at one lobe, the whole fused body reacted with a prominent startle response, suggesting that their nervous systems were also fully fused.

Mechanical stimulation applied to one side of the fused ctenophore resulted in a synchronized muscle contraction on the other side

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More detailed observations showed that the fused comb jellies had spontaneous movements for the first hour. After that, the timing of contractions on each lobe started to synch up more. After just two hours, 95% of the fused animal's muscle contractions were completely synchronous, they report.

They also looked closely at the digestive tract to find that it also had fused. When one of the mouths ingested fluorescently labeled brine shrimp, the food particles worked their way through the fused canal. Eventually, the comb jelly expelled waste products from both anuses, although not at the same time.
The allorecognition mechanisms are related to the immune system, and the fusion of nervous systems is closely linked to research on regeneration.

Rapid Physiological Integration of Fused Ctenophores, Current Biology (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.07.084. www.cell.com/current-biology/f … 0960-9822(24)01023-6

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